Linkletters returns to farmland

The famed Linkletters property, near Esperance in Western Australia, is set to return to farmland after almost a ­decade as a forest plantation, following an investor vote approving the restructure of the Agricultural Land Trust.

The 8900 hectare spread, planted with blue gums, is the sole remaining property in listed trust, now capitalised at $10.8 million.

The fund has been through a year-long workout, selling assets after pressure from its lenders and the decision by its majority investor Elders to wind up its forestry leasehold operations.

A unitholder meeting in Perth last Friday ultimately supported a complex and contested restructure.

Elders’s dominant stake and its lease will be cancelled. Powerful Western Australian landholder Allen Caratti becomes the controlling investor with more than 63 per cent of the register.

The next steps of the plan will see the unsuccessful gum plantation bull-dozed and the land made ready for cropping and grazing.

“It’s a great day for Linkletters and for the unitholders to get on the path to remediate Linkletters to what it once was," trust chairman Tom ­Pascarella said.

After a campaign to sell the property along with the rest of the trust’s portfolio failed, the fund manager had faced a choice over whether to remain listed, be privatised or see its lenders foreclose on the remaining asset.

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The final step in the painful restructure became protracted as management defended their plan from some investor opposition.

“The premise was to keep it listed but we need to remediate it to create value," Mr Pascarella said.

“Down the road who knows what alternatives could open up as far as it being a vehicle to develop new lands or to acquire more grazing or cropping land.

“We have the corporate structure there and we have a prime asset."

The Western Australian estate is named after Art Linkletter, the US television host who began developing the area in the 1950s. He ended up owning one of the largest parcels in the fertile south-west corner of Western Australia. The property came under the control of the Agricultural Land Trust about nine years ago and was rapidly planted with trees as the managed investment scheme sector took off.

At the height of the boom, vast tracts of land were pushed into plantation as investors capitalised on agriculture tax breaks in the sector.

The Agricultural Land Trust is one of the last big players in the sector to be worked out, following high-profile ­collapses of operators such as Great Southern and Timbercorp.